


On Falling, Mostly

by Abeleine



Category: Bleach
Genre: Anal Sex, Blood and Gore, Fingering, M/M, Oral Sex, Suggestive Themes, Violence, all of this eventually, emotional intelligence?, not a slow burn but not too fast either
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-07 23:06:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15918102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abeleine/pseuds/Abeleine
Summary: "Ichigo Kurosaki brought me up to the heavens and ruined me before I even realized what was happening."In which Grimmjow's directives for the war and his identity as an espada are sidetracked by a specific stubborn soul reaper.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told from Grimmjow’s perspective. 
> 
> The timeline for this is in the end notes if ur a stickler about lore and stuff

So it starts like this: I step out of the Garganta with my sword drawn, the last rays of the sunset reflecting off the blade as twilight settles over the city sprawling beneath my feet. The sky was a gorgeous haze of reds and purples and yellows, the colors shifting and blurring together into one heaping mass of pigment. Despite the rays of the sunset illuminating my form, the air was cold on my skin. 

Kurosaki was already waiting for me, sword drawn and trademark scowl locked in place. The amount of pure good-ness radiating off of his form made me want to gag; he absolutely _oozes_ apple-cheeked protagonism when you get close enough to him. 

The boy won’t admit it, but he’s always looking for a fight. I’m pretty sure he favors the ones where he has a significant disadvantage, and I am more than happy to deliver something painful. It’s what makes the two of us compatible, what has twisted our bodies together. We’re strong, and we’re starving. 

At least, I’m starving. I think he’s just hot headed. 

I grin, crack my neck, and probably say something incredibly witty before launching myself at Ichigo to finish what I had started. 

We’d been dancing this dance for a few months—I’d find a way to dupe Aizen in regards to my whereabouts and slip into the human world to have another go at trying to separate the soft tissue of Kurosaki’s throat from the rest of his body. In exchange, he bloodies me up the best he can until the soul reapers find us. The whole thing is very invigorating. 

Things were going good for Ichigo when he still had his composure, but he lost that along with a solid chunk of his arm after only a few minutes of us tangled together. I wish I could frame the look on his face when he realized what I’d done as the blood ran down his torso. The best he could manage after that was to block every killing blow I sent spiraling at him while he cradled the gritty remains of his left forearm against his chest. 

Unlike Kurosaki, I was having a hell of a time. I’m good at very few things, but combat was something ingrained into the very fibre of my being. For me, fighting Kurosaki felt like breathing and blinking. The only thing running through my mind is the image of his wide, pained eyes, and his defense only grew weaker as his stupid hollow mask began to crumble beneath the strain of my attacks. The adrenaline high I got after that mask broke and I ran his shoulder through like it was made of soft butter? Unexplainable. Pure ecstasy. It’s a delirium I’m pretty sure I’m addicted to.

“Is that all you’ve got Kurosaki? I expected more from someone who acts like they’re the hero of the story!”

I carved out a brutal cut I knew Ichigo wouldn’t be able to block, and it bit cruelly into his already injured side, opening up the rest of his left arm and part of his torso. It was kind of a dirty shot, but I couldn’t help it; he was pissing me off. Kurosaki never gives up or cuts his losses, even when it’s obvious he’s losing. it drives me insane. I could have had my sword through his heart and the idiot would use his last moments to claw at me and snarl. 

The boy fell back, curling in on himself and away from my blade to assess the damage done to his ribs. Judging by how pale he got after he looked at the area in question, I was pretty sure I’d exposed some bone. I’ll give him credit for what he did next—he took all of his fear and pain and desperation and released it in a massive burst of energy. The sheer force of knocked me back on my feet. Even though I darted to the side, I had to shield my face with my arms, and I could feel the burn of the black wave of power as it seared my flesh. 

I didn’t need to look to know that both of my forearms had been scorched, scarred up by the same black energy the boy had unleashed on me the first time we fought. It had been a good attack; probably the best he could manage in these circumstances. One of those superhuman things the hero does when he’s at his lowest. It was unfortunate that it wouldn’t be enough to stop me. 

Ichigo sees this when the dust clears and turns even paler if possible. Despite the obvious panic emanating through his body, he turned and shot straight towards me with a determined expression. I braced myself for an attack only to curse as he flew right over my shoulder, hurtling down towards the dense cityscape. 

I twisted my body and went careening after him, catching him in the small of his back and sending us both straight through a water tower. I heard Ichigo howl and somehow, inexplicably, he managed to twist his arm around to pull a handful of my hair in retaliation. It wasn’t a strong grip, but how he was able to move while I was literally plowing him through solid metal is beyond me. I stand by the idea that he’s actually made of steel or a brand of titanium alloy. It’s the only reasonable explanation as to how he managed to survive for so long while being such a stubborn idiot. 

Ichigo took the brunt of the impact when we landed. I struggled to my feet and watched as he struggled weakly amongst the debris. It looked like he was too dizzy from blood loss and the hit his head took to stand. Lying on his side, he had an arm wrapped tight around his ribs. I would have been unbelievably surprised if they weren’t shattered.

I stopped my tirade on Kurosaki for a second to compose myself. My jacket was in shreds, and during the fight I’d become absolutely drenched in our blood. At some point, the boy had gotten a couple hits on me, and a deep cut on my thigh screamed for my attention. Running a hand through my hair, I tried to ignore the fire lancing up my leg as I approached his listless form. 

I took my time looking over his battered body, taking in the weak rattle of his chest and the unfocused, frenetic shift of his gaze. Finally, after countless fights, clashes, and scuffles, I had him right where I wanted with no distractions in sight. I had been patient waiting for this moment, and now I was going to savor it. 

Ichigo was lying on his side. I nudged his opposite him, rolling him onto his back. Instead of running him through, or crushing his skull with my heel like I should have done, I took that moment to straddle him and press my the meat of my palm against his throat. 

At this point I probably should have known something was up, that this was more than a petty rivalry I couldn’t let rest. I savored kills, and I was messy, but nothing had never been like this. I’d never gotten this close to someone without my hand stabbing its way through some part of their body. In my experience, there’s a very fine line between bloodlust and actual lust, and a fair bit of overlap between the two. I’m not really in the business of knowing things, or being in touch with emotions, so I’m going to use that as my excuse for not realizing that I actually didn’t want to remove Kurosaki from existence at this moment.

He was warm, despite the blood loss. I could feel the fast beat of his pulse beneath my palm. My hand is loose around his neck, not quite choking him but firm enough to keep his head from rising. Beneath me, I can feel the buck and shift of his hips as he tries unsuccessfully to dislodge me. I think he was more disoriented than anything. I could see a slight film over his eyes.

“Do you ever wonder if you’ll have an afterlife Kurosaki?” 

“What?” 

“After I get revenge for this,” 

I gestured to the huge wound struck across my chest, a memento from my first encounter with the boy. It had healed to the point that I could barely feel the sting of it, but my message carried the weight it needed to. 

“Do you think your soul will live on, or will your existence end here?”

My grip on Ichigo’s neck tightened as he reacted to my threat, his movements messy and frantic. One of his hands curled around my wrist while the other scrabbled at my thigh. Ignoring his struggling, I pressed down further into him, making him gag. 

“Are you afraid?”

“Afraid that...your large ass...will break my ribs...even worse?” Ichigo gasped out the words, barely able to breathe amongst his pain and the pressure I was exerting. Of course he uses the last bit of his strength to make a snarky remark. It’s exactly what I was expecting from him, but somehow it makes me even angrier. He’s literally on the ground beneath me, but I still have to suppress the urge to haul him up and tear him to pieces all over again. I dug my fingers into his throat and relished from his wince of pain. As his blood pools around us, it becomes clear that he’s completely at my mercy. 

“It’s cute that you can still talk back. But, the real question is,”

I angled my thumb up so it dug up into the soft underside of his chin, forcing his head to tilt backwards to the point that he could barely keep from choking himself on my hand. Ichigo stopped struggling, his eyes squeezed shut. One of his hands was in a fist with a bit of my pant leg balled up into it. The other was draped over mine at his throat. He was too exhausted to pull me away from him. 

“Will your friends recognize you after I’ve torn your face to shreds, or will I get to them before they find your body?”

In another world, this is where things would have gone differently. Ichigo would have made some weak plea for his life, would have begged me to stay away from his friends and family and anyone else he held dear to him, a de-facto heroic gesture. Else, he would have tried to strike a bargain with me to protect them, and some weird fuck-or-die fantasy I’ve had about us would ensue. Or, we would pause, realize how aroused the fight had made us, and fuck anyways. Or maybe I would lean down to kiss him right when he thinks I’m going to tear his throat open. 

Would. That is the key word here. Would have. All of this is careful, artful stuff that ultimately never came into being. The reality is as it normally is; much less valiant and sensual. 

Kurosaki curled his lip, tightened his grip on my wrist, and muttered two words: 

“Do it.” 

And that’s where everything could have ended, right after twilight on the roof of a nameless city building. I’d have throttled the life out of Kurosaki and torn his body into ten different pieces for his friends to find like I promised, and it’s likely that the war would have turned in my favor(not that the war was ever something I ever really cared about). 

Yet, as the boy fell into unconsciousness, something inside me...stopped.

I didn’t move my hand from his throat, but my grip had lost all of its pressure. Now that I wasn’t holding him down, Ichigo’s head lolled gently to the side. In spite of everything, his expression was almost peaceful.

I want to make something clear here: I am known for destruction. If I had a brand, it would be killing things. Becoming a Vasto Lorde meant overcoming thousands of souls in a fight for dominance, and consuming thousands more to maintain that power. I even didn’t hesitate when I tore apart my only companions in Hueco Mundo, using their souls to advance in rank. I had never not stopped myself from taking a kill, so you can imagine how perplexed this left me. 

I am still not sure what stopped me here. But, like I said, Ichigo Kurosaki ruined me long before I ever realized what he was doing to me. I suppose this is around when that started. 

This is how his friends found me when they reached me: I was sitting in the boy’s lap and cradling his slack face with my hand, in total bewilderment as to why I couldn’t find it in me to finish him. The soul reaper with red hair came at me in a flying tackle which broke us apart as soon as he made contact, but it took all five of them to drag me away from the boy’s limp body. I had to know what what stopping me from killing him. I’d never felt an emotion more complex than murderous intent before this. If I couldn’t define what emotion I was feeling towards the boy I was being pulled away from, I was going to go insane. 

This night was the first and only time the soul reapers managed to get me away from Kurosaki. I don’t know how much they know about us, but I know that they’d relish in the concept of overcoming me and tearing me away from him in another, more permanent fashion. 

Yet, as I reflect on this night while lying next to him in his bed, his head nestled in the crook of my arm, I like to think I’m winning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic starts in the middle of the war. If this fight ever happened, it would have happened after Grimmjow’s first fight with Ichigo(along with several other fights that are referenced here), and before Grimmjow’s fight with Shinji and Ichigo.
> 
> Grimmjow doesn’t lose his arm and rank until after this fight; more on this later.


	2. Chapter 2

I’ll be honest for a moment: I didn’t come back to Karakura with the intent of seeing the boy. A ball of white hot anger was burning its way through my chest, and I’d run out of fracción to tear into pieces in Las Noches. Aizen had caught me returning from my last romp in the human world, and I’d been stripped of my rank as punishment. I mean stripped in the most literal way possible; I had a freshly cauterized wound sizzling on the small of my back in absence of my tattoo when made the decision to go back to the town that had gotten me into this situation in the first place. 

I wasn’t sure what I was trying to accomplish when I did it; I only remember wanting to go somewhere that made me feel something. All Las Noches did was remind me that I was deteriorating. I was never very good at keeping myself out of trouble. 

You can only imagine my surprise when I came out of the garganta in the process of brewing a personal emotional hurricane to find Kurosaki sitting on the edge of a building right in front of me. 

There was no mistaking it; it was definitely him, from the bright hair to his tight, tense posture. I could’ve picked the boy out from a whole crowd of soul reapers if I had to. The only thing that confused me was his outfit: a starched shirt with gray slacks, his sleeves rolled to his elbows. I was dumbfounded for a solid minute as I tried to figure out if the soul reapers had changed uniforms to confuse the espada, or if Kurosaki has been issued a special uniform as a mark of his strength. Then I watched as he took in and let out a deep breath, something that dead people would never bother with. 

Ah, right. When Ichigo wasn’t fighting monsters and leading a multidimensional war effort, he was a human teenager. 

However, even if I didn’t know much of anything about humans, something about this scene felt off. There was no reason for Ichigo to be on a roof in the middle of the night in his human body, especially when he was in a way. He might as well have painted a target on his back, or instructed me on where exactly to stab him.

In spite of my ominous looming as I worked through all of these idle thoughts, the boy hadn’t so much as noticed my presence. I couldn’t blame him for expecting to be alone on a roof in the middle of the night, but he really needed to work on sensing spiritual pressure. 

I toyed with the idea of scaring him. The look he’d make would be incredibly satisfying. I couldn’t stop myself from imagining the jerk of his body, the little “o” his mouth would form as he scrambled to get back from me after I shoved him between the shoulders. It would give me the perfect opening to say something clever too, which was essential for the delivery. I turned the potential scene over a few more times in my head before scrapping it. If I got too excited and used too much strength, I’d probably push him clean off the roof, and then the whole thing would be ruined(killing him _would_ turn the war in our favor, but I cared much more about showing off to Kurosaki than all of Aizen’s imperialistic bullshit combined.)

“A bit late,” I ended up calling out. 

“Don’t humans have to sleep?” 

Despite my lack of intent, Kurosaki still started at the sound of my voice. He whirled around and took me in, eyes widening a little when he realized it was me before looking down at the ground. I’d braced myself with the expectation that he would go straight for his sword at the sight of me, and after he didn’t do this I was put at a total loss of what to do. I contemplated pushing him off the building anyways as a cover for my incredulousness. 

“Are you here for a fight? Revenge, or something?” The normally-present edge in his voice was barely there. I was no expert on the boy(yet), but he barely sounded like himself. 

“I mean, we are in a war.”

I sounded like a dumbass, but it was Kurosaki’s fault for posing his questions so awkwardly. His current demeanor didn’t help any of it either. In addition to his voice lacking its usual bite, he looked like something that had been left in the sun for too long; worn out like the life had been bleached out of him. 

I’d never been in a situation like this before. What was I supposed to say to someone who asked me for a fight but clearly did not want to follow up on it? 

“So you do want a fight then?”

His question reminded me that, even if I wasn’t mad at Kurosaki specifically, I was still mad as hell, and I was here to blow off some steam whether he was in a mood or otherwise. I shrugged, pretending to mull over his question as I drew my sword. This could potentially become interesting if I got the boy riled up. 

“A little scrap never hurt anyone, _except_ maybe you. Are you going to give me a good match this time?”

An all-too-familiar look crossed the boy’s face when I reminded him of how our last encounter went, and he stood, squaring his shoulders. He still wasn’t acting exactly like the Kurosaki I knew, but as angry as I was it would be enough for me. 

“We’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”

I stuck my tongue out to taunt him, and that was all it took for the boy to jump out of his body and come running at me. 

This fight was different from our last in that it was definitively shorter. Actually, it was much more brief and one-sided than any other fight I’d had with Kurosaki total, because I managed to disarm him and pin him on the roof after only a couple minutes of exchanging blows. 

Per usual, the boy struggled beneath me and tried to break free, but his movements lacked any and all of the specific urgency of someone actually fighting for their life. He stopped moving completely when I jammed my palm beneath his jaw, and I realized the whole act, fight and everything, had been fabricated to get me to strangle him again. The concept was so ridiculous I wanted to write it off as meaningless speculation, but even as I halted in killing Ichigo for a second time, his body continued to lie pliant beneath me with no obvious intention of escape. 

Finally picking up on my similar lack of movement, Ichigo opened his eyes and propped himself up on his elbows. We made a ridiculous sight like this: me straddling the boy with my arms crossed like an upset lover while he stared at me with equal levels of discontent. After a few more moments of this awkward tension, he spoke. 

“Well? Aren’t you going to send me to hell or something? I thought you were here to fight.”

I threw my arms in the air. It was beyond me how the soul reapers let the boy operate in the war unmonitored when he was this much of an idiot. I could have—and for all intents and purposes, I _should_ have—throttled him and taken his body as a spoil of war. 

When I think about this in hindsight, it makes sense that I fell in love with him, and him me. We were incredibly terrible at doing what we were supposed to, and someone from the opposing side in a war we were fighting is objectively the worst thing either of us could have done. 

All of this aside, the boy was still looking at me with the expectation of a response. I’d already thrown my hands up to express my exasperation, so I decided to be as direct as possible before I got too frustrated and ended up killing him anyways. 

“Are you going to tell me why you’re so fucking eager for me to kill you?”

The question must have been a good indicator that I wasn’t going to go through with choking Kurosaki to death, because he shoved me off of him with a furious huff in retaliation. I sat back, leaning on my palms, watching while he collected himself and—get this—got back into his human body right before my eyes. My shock only multiplied as he went back to his previous position on the rooftop like I was no longer there.

Several lines of thought began running through my head at once. If I was unsure before, I was positive now that something was wrong with the boy. Maybe he was...tired? That was something that happened to humans. Or he was calling reinforcements and using this weird act to confuse me. Maybe this wasn’t Kurosaki at all, but rather a clever stunt double the soul reapers planted to lure me in. Regardless, why wasn’t I tearing the skin off his face again? Also, more importantly, why wasn’t Ichigo’s top priority to get away from me with a mix of disgust and anger playing across his features?

I was sitting next to him before I realized what I was doing. Ichigo didn’t acknowledge my presence at first, but when it became clear I wasn’t planning on leaving or breaking his neck, he spoke. 

“So you really aren’t going to kill me?” 

His voice was heavier than I was expecting. From this distance, I could see the lines etched beneath his eyes. 

“I mean, I came here with the intent of annihilating something, but I feel like if I killed you I’d be doing you a favor.”

That made him snort. Seeing his face come to life, even for just a moment made my stomach jump. I didn’t realize exactly how worn down he looked until his face displayed something other than a dead expression. 

“Thank you. That’s great for my self esteem.” 

“Yeah, because our relationship is all about me making you feel good about yourself.”

He laughed this time, and the soft sound of it made something well up inside me. Honest to God, for a second I was sure I was going to throw up. The boy gave me a look when I clutched at my chest, trying to assess the damage that’d been done to my internal organs. Of course the first time I felt giddy I assumed I was dying. 

“Everything okay?” There was real concern in the tone of his voice, which was something I wasn’t expecting either. I looked up at him and had to immediately look away—the gentle crease in his brow only made my stomach worse. 

The feeling was still fluttering around inside me, but I forced myself to push it down so I could focus. I had a split-second to search my mind for something, anything that would change the topic before the boy had a chance to feed this feeling further. Being the caring, thoughtful person I was, I ended up on what would push him away the easiest. 

“Why didn’t you resist when I tried to kill you the last time I was here? Why aren’t you afraid of me right now?” 

It worked. Too well. Ichigo curled up and looked away from me at something I couldn’t see. The crease in his brow deepened as he pulled his legs up so he could tuck his nose between his knees. The feeling in my chest dissipated, but what remained was almost worse than it forming in the first place. 

We stayed like this for a long time. When Ichigo finally started to speak, his voice was so soft I had to lean in to hear him. 

“I...it’s hard. Doing this job. Being in a war. Sometimes it can be exhausting.” 

Ichigo had probably shrunk to about half his size with how tightly he was curled up. After the whole feelings debacle earlier that night, I was cautious about feeling things, so I tried not to focus too hard on the storm that was obviously raging inside of him. 

And yet, I couldn’t help but to notice how vulnerable the boy was like this, his whole back exposed and his attention away from his enemy. He’d make a terrible hollow. Why was I not killing him at that moment? Who knew? I’d become way too focused on how his fingers played with the cuffs of his shirt, and the way the moonlight caught the slight strip of exposed skin on the back of his neck. 

“Do you think I like getting stabbed? Or breaking bones? I come back to school after two weeks of being in a coma and not only do I have a shit-ton of makeup work, but I have to tell everyone around me some dumb lie about why I was missing. Everyone thinks I’m a punk and I have to work even harder to maintain a good reputation.”

In the midst of his monologue, Ichigo’s uncurled a little to punctuate some of his points with sharp gestures. 

“I know the soul reapers know I have a life outside of this, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that they don’t care.”

I can’t recall the next part of what he said; I’d gotten very distracted by the multitude of expressions playing across his features while he spoke. He stopped mid-sentence when he noticed me staring, and I think he thought my look was because I was waiting for him to answer my other question as opposed to me being incredibly interested in memorizing every detail of his face. 

“This,” He gestured to the space between us.

“...is a gamble mostly. Renji told me how he found us.”

I stopped focusing on his ear at that, and we locked eyes. So he did know about our last fight, that his friends didn’t save him from me. Kurosaki knew that I had spared him. 

Ichigo held my stare, his gaze narrowing by just a fraction. He was trying to figure something out. He spoke, and this time his voice was guarded. 

“Why didn’t you kill me?” 

Fuck. I guess this was what I got for asking him hard shit. It was only fair to give him an answer on the same level of vulnerability as his. I thought for a long moment about what to say to him, about the best way to explain the feelings he’d inadvertently made me feel. Maybe I’d also talk about how I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. 

I tried to find a concise way to express all of this before remembering I was myself; I didn’t really care about fairness.

“That’s for me to know, and for you to not-know.”

It was the exact opposite of what Ichigo had expressed to me, and for a second, I was afraid he would take it poorly. It was to my extreme delight when instead, the boy smirked and uncurled himself completely. His smile didn’t leave his face.

“Leave it to me to think a hollow would give a straight answer.” 

“Maybe if you ask better fucking questions, I’ll feel more inclined to tell you things.”

Ichigo took my snark as a challenge, and launched a whole slew of questions at me. He asked me about my wound, and about being an espada. I did my best to slip truth between teasing him and my crooked half-answers. In exchange, he gave me long, honest answers with full descriptions. I suppose the transaction wasn’t fair, but he seemed more than happy to participate in it. 

I learned several completely random things about Kurosaki: why he liked night more than day, what music was stuck in his head, even gossip about his human friends at school. I didn’t understand any of it, but I listened to all of it and held onto every inflection of the boy’s voice. 

Of course, all good things have to end eventually. Ichigo was human, and the more we talked the more time passed. As I watched him crawl down the side of the roof—the roof of his home, I learned—I realized that the hurricane inside me had dissipated, and I wasn’t angry anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love writing Grimmjow slowly learning affection lmao
> 
> Thank you for the read, and all of the support so far!


End file.
